My brother and his wife took my wife and me to the Inspiring Impressionism exhibit at the Denver Art Museum today. I was expecting to look at pretty, pastelly, airy brushstrokes of ballet dancers and piano lessons, but the exhibit was much more than that. If I would have read the title of the exhibit closer I might have realized that.

The exhibit opened with a huge reproduction of a painting (I don’t remember the artist or the title) of two women at the Louvre, in front of an easel, copying an Old Master painting on the wall. Verbatim. When I saw that painting, I quickly became excited for the exhibition. I love art theft and the “ecstasy of influence.” The exhibit was set up as a comparison between Old Master paintings and Impressionist paintings. The Impressionists honed their skills by copying the works of the Old Masters. That was a fascinating discovery for me.

I watch as my students write expository essays using a mixture of their own words and words that ain’t. And I watch as they draw exact replicas of their favorite characters from their favorite comics. And despite the refrain we hear from many corners of the adult world that “kids today” are up to no good, I don’t sweat too much this apparent lack of creativity.

I knew that Joan Didion learned how to write sentences by re-writing Ernest Hemingway’s sentences and now I know that Degas learned to paint by mimicking the brush strokes of the Old Masters. Said Degas, “No art is less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters.” To expect my students to create the spontaneous without reflection and study is unrealistic.